Department hands P.M. a lesson

Press, 12 September 1987, Page 3

Department hands P.M. a lesson

By

PETER LUKE,

political reporter

The planning and implementation of key educational reforms has been disastrous, because of the refusal of successive Governments to commit themselves to medium-term or long-term spending, said the Education Department yesterday.

In what the new Minister of Education, Mr Lange, described as a very frank document, the department gave him a 154-page lesson in economic management

The document was the departmental briefing paper on topical issues — one of a series of papers for Ministers to be released during the next two weeks.

Spelt out for Mr Lange were both the resource implications of his Government’s policies and the need to change the system of annual allocations of money.

“The biggest and the most urgent task facing you Is to persuade your colleagues in the Cabinet to commit the Government to flrm policies for the forward planning of the various educational reforms to which it is already committed.’* Apart from three-year capital works programmes, Mr Lange held no financial approvals to allow the department to plan beyond the present financial year for most policies and the 1988-89 year for a few others.

•The outcome for the planning and implementation of key educational reforms has been disas-

trous. Government decisions have become piecemeal and for the most part limited to the financial year budgetary provisions being made,” it said. The department listed 21 policies which required medium-term planning if teachers and resources were to become available for them in Labour’s second term.

One of these policies was curriculum reform foreshadowed in the Curriculum Review released earlier this year.

The department estimated that it would take a minimum of $250 million, spread over five years, to implement the review’s recommendations. Other issues or policies were not costed, apart from comments such as “large resource implications” (Roper Report recommendations in education) or “an expensive policy” (mainstreaming). The Director-General of Education, Mr Bill Renwick, has asked for an early meeting with Mr Lange to discuss priorities, pointing out that the next Budget round would start in several months.

Mr Lange said the paper raised stark issues, particularly resource demands and the “fragmentation of administration.”'

He was not surprised at the department’s stance, but he pointed out that the Treasury briefing papers — yet to be released — would not share the stance.

It was now up to the Government to decide whether the range of policy options would be sustained and to make priority judgments. Mr Lange warned that there was no “bottomless pit” for funding, and it was inevitable that there would be competition for resources between sectors, or between education and other departments.

“There will be readjustments in priorities within education and I believe there will be readjustments in over-all Government expenditure, adverse to some interests and favourable to education.”

Within education, Mr Lange’s “instinctive response” was that early childhood education would have a high priority, as “the earliest influence on the child was likely to be the most profound.” Reading recovery, mathematics recovery, and the Roper Report recommendations would be priorities, also, he suggested.